E-O interfaces are used in high speed communication systems to convert an electrical signal into a light signal. Typically, an E-O interface includes a driver stage controlled by voltage signals produced in preceding electronic stages and capable to drive E-O coupling elements of the modulator with sufficiently large voltages and currents to modulate a continuous light wave propagating in an optical wave guide.
In high data rate (DR) applications, the driver stage of an E-O modulator may be of interest since it must provide large output voltage levels with steep rising and falling edges in order to ensure proper operation without degrading the Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) of a transmitted bit stream. At the same time, the final power stage may have reduced power dissipation, since it contributes significantly to the overall power budget of a typical optical link.
In order to meet these guidelines, high speed final driver stage implementations for data rates equal to or greater than 25 Gbps rely on the use of comparably expensive materials, such as Gallium Arsenide, Indium Phosphide, Indium Gallium Arsenide, or on expensive technological platforms, such as Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) (See A 40-Gb/s Optical Transceiver Front-End in 45 nm SOI CMOS, Joohwa Kim; Buckwalter, J. F., IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 47, 2012, Page(s): 615-626; Design of an opto-electronic modulator driver amplifier for 40-Gb/s data rate systems, Long, A.; Buck, J.; Powell, R., Journal of Lightwave Technology, Volume: 20, 2002 Page(s): 2015-2021; Ultra-low voltage substrate-removed mach-zehnder intensity modulators with integrated electrical drivers, Dogru, S.; JaeHyuk Shin; Dagli, N., LEOS Annual Meeting Conference Proceedings, 2009. LEOS '09. IEEE, Page(s): 656-657; A Fully Integrated 20-Gb/s Optoelectronic Transceiver Implemented in a Standard 13-CMOS SOI Technology, Analui, B.; Guckenberger, D.; Kucharski, D.; Narasimha, A., IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Volume: 41, 2006, Page(s): 2945-2955; Power Efficiency Comparisons of Interchip Optical Interconnect Architectures, Palaniappan, A.; Palermo, S., IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, Volume: 57, Publication Year: 2010, Page(s): 343-347) and use comparably large voltage supplies, up to 5V. Only recently, silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) or BiCMOS implementations have been developed and proposed as viable low cost alternatives (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,899,276, 7,515,775, 7,450,787, and 7,039,258.)